Siemens acquires UltraSoC to drive design for silicon lifecycle management

Siemens has signed an agreement to acquire Cambridge, UK-based UltraSoC Technologies Ltd., a provider of instrumentation and analytics solutions that put intelligent monitoring, cybersecurity and functional safety capabilities into the core hardware of system-on-chip (SoC).

Siemens plans to integrate UltraSoC’s technology into the Xcelerator portfolio as part of Mentor’s Tessent software product suite. The addition of UltraSoC to Siemens enables a unified data-driven infrastructure that can enhance product quality, safety and cybersecurity, and the creation of a comprehensive solution to help semiconductor industry customers overcome key pain points including manufacturing defects, software and hardware bugs, device early-failure and wear-out, functional safety, and malicious attacks.

“Siemens’ acquisition of UltraSoC means that for the first time our customers can access not just design-for-test, but a comprehensive ‘Design for Lifecycle Management’ solution for system-on-chips, including functional safety, security and optimization,” says Brady Benware, Tessent VP and GM, Siemens Digital Industries Software.

“By utilizing design augmentation to detect, mitigate and eliminate risks throughout the SoC lifecycle, customers can radically improve time-to-revenue, product quality & safety, and profitability. UltraSoC has a fast-growing business and impressive customer list and, as part of Siemens, can complement Tessent to create a truly unique offering in the market.”

UltraSoC is a pioneer of embedding monitoring hardware into complex SoCs to enable “fab-to-field” analytics capabilities designed to accelerate silicon bring-up, optimize product performance, and confirm that devices are operating “as designed” for functional safety and cyber security purposes.

Tessent is a market leader in SoC design-for-test (DFT) solutions, and has established strengths in the field of automotive functional safety via its Tessent Safety Ecosystem. These two highly complementary offerings are the foundation of a complete package of solutions, encompassing semiconductor design and production, functional safety, cybersecurity, and functional optimization of products in the field.

The combination of Siemens and UltraSoC technology can benefit the entire semiconductor product lifecycle, including structural, electrical, and functional capabilities of SoCs. It also supports Siemens’ comprehensive digital twin with UltraSoC providing monitoring of the real device.

“This acquisition accelerates UltraSoC's vision at a much larger scale with the incredible team, assets, industry know-how and footprint of Siemens,” said Rupert Baines, CEO, UltraSoC.

“Being part of one of the world’s foremost technology companies will allow UltraSoC to better serve our customers by accelerating R&D, leveraging a much larger pool of go-to-market resources, and an enormous global infrastructure. It has been clear since our initial meeting that UltraSoC and Siemens share a vision on how technology businesses can transform their operations end-to-end, from design conception to field deployment and we are excited to join the community.”

UltraSoC‘s products are widely used in the automotive, high-performance computing, storage and semiconductor industries. The company was recently selected as a participant in the DARPA AISS (Automatic Implementation of Secure Silicon) program. It is a member of the Secure-CAV consortium, an ambitious collaborative project that aims to improve the safety and security of tomorrow’s connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs). Siemens’ acquisition of UltraSoC is due to close in the fourth quarter of Siemens’ fiscal year 2020. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Siemens Digital Industries Software is driving transformation to enable a digital enterprise where engineering, manufacturing and electronics design meet tomorrow. The Xcelerator portfolio helps companies of all sizes create and leverage digital twins that provide organizations with new insights, opportunities and levels of automation to drive innovation.